


Anthraxite and Other Things that Never Seem to Happen

by mynameisraj



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: A/B/O, Alien Planet, Alpha!Keith, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Angst, Disaster gay, Fluff, Galra Keith (Voltron), Heats, How Do I Tag, Hurt/Comfort, Keith (Voltron) is Bad at Feelings, Langst, M/M, Nesting, Omega!Lance, Post-S6, Scenting, Shiro - Freeform, Sort of? - Freeform, abo for FLUFF, abo for smut? ha, adopted family, beach, but it's not smut, but it's soft, first fic on here, i wrote this before we were given adam, kill me, lance has a crush, light background shallura, the blink dog is named Pom Pom, who is a queer icon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-21
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-06-14 01:35:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15377781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mynameisraj/pseuds/mynameisraj
Summary: Keith and Lance go down to get some minerals from an alien planet...which is exactly when Lance's heat hits.





	Anthraxite and Other Things that Never Seem to Happen

**Author's Note:**

> VERY loosely based on the MLB fic 'you deserve to be loved and you deserve what you are given' by scuttlebugg. Find me on tumblr at @hermionepunchesnazis. 
> 
> PLEASE READ THE NOTES THEY ARE IMPORTANT
> 
> Here’s a brief overview of my take on abo, which will be used in any other fic I write in the alternate universe. It comes up in the fic, so please do read it.  
> Secondary sex dynamics exist biologically to ensure community, bonding, and procreation. There is residual secondary sexism in human society, more like stereotypes than a power imbalance, while real primary sexism still exists as we know it. Secondary sexual stereotypes for those of alpha designation are more bossy, mean, controlling, decisive, and protective, those of beta designation are easygoing, independent, antisocial, chaotic, and disorganized, and those of omega designation are caring, calm, needy, unambitious, and fearful. In reality, while alphas may have been raised to say their minds, lead, and push their desires on others, they aren’t innately like that and vary in their characteristics like real people. Keith is a good leader, but not bossy or pushy, since Krolia thinks human sexual stereotypes are dumb, Texas raised him according to her wishes, and Shiro was pretty hands-off. Lance was raised fairly traditionally, and almost fits the beta stereotype, but changed a lot of his parents’ preconceived notions when he presented omega. The dynamics ensure community by creating packs, of which most people have two– a family pack of the people who raised them, their siblings, and their children. Most people also have a network of close friends in a pack who often mate within it. Children are the priority of all societies. Family packs are all centered around raising kids. Friendship packs often protect younger people who are vulnerable until their can get back on their feet or adopt group dogs. A whole friendship and family pack staying over at one person’s house when that person has a new kid to help take care of them is not uncommon. Not wanting to be mated is perfectly normal, but people are expected to at least help raise their siblings’ or friends’ kids. Not wanting children is almost unheard of and considered a disorder. (I bring all this up because there’s mention of having/adopting kids at a point in the characters’ relationship that would be weird for us, but is very normal for them.)  
> Dynamics don’t really matter in packs, which are run on age or democratically, but only in bonds. Traditionalists expect alpha-omega or beta-beta, but most people at this point are good with whatever as long as they can raise children. (Homophobia doesn’t really exist. Couples who can’t reproduce adopt.) When people can’t raise their biological children, it’s considered an enormously sacrificial and courageous decision to adopt them out. Prenatal, birthing, and postnatal care are all free, accessible, and super good. Both parents get leave for a year, gifts from their packs, and free childcare until the kid is ten. Few people get abortions, and it is considered an act of utmost desperation. Most people pregnant with children they can’t bring to term are deeply admired and pitied, never fired or looked down upon, cared for by their packs, and often given care packages by their communities.  
> Mates are for life. Alphas especially, but betas and omegas as well, have strong instincts to protect their nesting omega mates. Alphas’ distinctive characteristics are a pheromone called primain louder voices, particularly strong omega protection instincts, and ruts, or periods happening roughly four times a year of increased fertility, libido, protectiveness, etc. Betas are identified by a pheromone called deucin, longer preferred periods of being in a romantic relationship before becoming mates, and periods four times a year of increased emotiveness, libido, and stamina called flushes. Omegas are identified by a pheromone called tertiarin, nesting during their ‘spike period’ , and periods four times a year of increased libido, fertility, etc. All people experience decreased inhibitions, oxytocin spikes, increase in emotions, a more sensitive and active endocrine system, and increased need for physical contact during their ‘periods’.  
> In this work, (and in any other works I might write in this AU) Shiro is an alpha and uses he/him pronounds, Allura and Coran don’t have secondary sexes but still can and do participate in pack scenting, cuddling, communal messy eating, and fawning over every tiny alien they find. Keith is an alpha, Lance is an omega, Hunk is a beta, and Pidge hasn’t presented yet. She uses they or she, and likes to say that she’s too busy figuring out how to save the galaxy to figure out gender.

They’d been out looking for anthraxite deposits when it happened. Allura jumped them through from the Arca system to a planet near a star in the Iridia constellation, terraformed by the Cerianens and abandoned when the local protists evolved to synthesize oxygen, which the Cerianen species couldn’t breathe. Allura had been tired and spent of energy after the wormhole and went to work on Shiro’s new arm. Shiro kept telling her that whatever she made would be perfect, but she wanted it to feel safe, unlike the Galra arm, with give in the surface and feeling in the fingers, filled with her energy. The last model Keith had seen had Altean markings on the shoulders. 

Coran had sent them down, citing that he needed pearlite powder to nestle one of the engine matrices in, and the levels were low in Green. Coran slept in Green’s engineer chamber, which he mostly did because Pidge would let him happily babble at her about Altean society, linguistics, engineering, and astrophysics as long as he wanted. 

Shiro was staying in Blue. Allura slept curled up in the pilot’s chair, while he took her cot. Keith was surprised when he didn’t insist that she take the bed, but Shiro was healing, he knew, and Allura was healing too, though Hunk had had to be the one to point it out to him. She healed so differently than Shiro or his mom did; it was hard to tell. 

He saw Lance looking at them mournfully when they stopped on an asteroid to rest. When Keith asked, he said it was just that he missed Blue. 

Coran sent them down in Red and Black, or tried to, but Hunk stopped him, since Lance was close to hitting his heat again– just a day off. When Lance practically threw a fit and insisted that the two of them go, Keith was relieved, which seemed like an asshole thing to feel, until Krolia took one look at him and told him he looked as restless as a groznarrk with the skits, which he did not understand either. 

He left Pom Pom with Romelle and took Black down to the surface of the planet, with Lance close behind. Lance was unusually quiet– Keith had expected some quips about how this planet, for once, was a sphere and not a blown-out shell or a weird amoeba or a whale, some flirting, gentle mockery of his piloting skills, blustering confidence, and some off-the-cuff remark that make Keith feel the need to catch his breath, but Lance just stayed quiet until they broke through the atmosphere and saw the beaches. 

“Keith!” He exclaimed. “Quiznak, Keith, look!”

They were shimmering and white, almost iridescent with flecks of rock, ribbons lining the knobby green forests and the clean, greenish water. Keith tilted the controls back to set Black safely down. The engine quieted, and he felt the lion’s being still. It felt different with Shiro out of it, more his. 

Keith walked out of the lion’s open mouth. Lance was out already, his helmet forgotten in the sparkling sand, hair sticking up in the back. He was splashing in the green water, whooping and shouting. He’d left his armor on. The surf foamed white around his ankles. 

Then Red pulled at his brain for the first time since he’d climbed into Black’s cockpit. 

**_Take care of him._ **

Keith automatically sniffed the air; it smelled like oxygen, growing things, fresh water and engine grease. He smelled Lance, sweaty, clean with alien-scented soaps,  _ omega  _ and _ boy,  _ but also flushed with happiness, giddy with it. He was close to his heat, mildly injured, tired, but happy. Keith smelled something else, too, but not in his nose as much as his brain, that Lance was his pack. 

_ There’s nothing wrong,  _ Keith thought at Red, who was no longer listening. 

Lance sat down, chest deep in the water. He was still in his armor, but his hair was half-damp, illuminated by the white sun. He was quiet again. Keith smelled him tired and a little shakier. 

“You okay?” He tried. His boots sunk into the soft sand. 

“I guess,” Lance answered. “I’m not the one who just spent two years on a space whale and found a planet full of Alteans.”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t feel like two years.” It didn’t. It felt like children playing house, pretending to sleep, pretending to wake up– five-minute days consumed by throwing sticks for Pom Pom or sparring with his mother, who kept careful tallies of the imaginary days on the wall. 

“It looks like two years,” Lance said quietly. 

Lance had stormed toward him, indignant and curious and hurt, demanding everything from him– time and answers– and he’d brushed past, because they had a mission to finish. When finally Shiro was safe, they touched hands for a moment– Keith was the one who started it, because he had a pack again, and his mother, family-pack though she was, just didn’t instinctually  _ act  _ like his pack. Lance was different now too. 

“I remember the bonding moment,” he said, which hurt Keith’s brain worse than getting punched by Shiro. “I remember saving your stupid mullet life and you cradling me in your awesome weirdly strong noodle arms.” 

“What,” Keith hiccuped, which would have been embarrassing if his brain had been working. 

“I always remembered it. I just didn’t want to tell you.”

“Lance, I–”

“I’m sorry I was a huge jackass, okay? It’s just you were gone and the pack was different and Shiro was weird and Pidge was angry and sad about her family and our cuddle piles smell different without you.” Lance’s voice rasped and scraped. “Red misses you. I miss food-fighting with you and– and–”

Lance smelled different. It was good different, warm and soft, comfortable and intoxicating. 

“Lance, you’re early.” He managed to momentarily ignore everything Lance had just dumped on him, because now there was a mission, and Lance needed him. 

“No– no.” Lance wiped water off of his face. “Just get the sand. I can fly back–” Lance tried to stand up, but Keith could smell how frightened, vulnerable, and lonely he felt. He was not in flying condition. “Keith–”

Keith slipped an arm under his shoulders. Lance’s breath hitched, which most of Keith managed to move past. 

“I’m taking you to your lion.”

“I can fly,” Lance quavered. 

“No, you can’t,” Keith answered bluntly.  _ What the shit do I do?  _ “You can nest in there, where it’s safe.” 

Lance plopped down in a divot in the sand. “ _ No.  _ Here is good.”

“You. Are. Not. Safe.”

“ _ Keith,”  _ Lance whined, smell full of hurt and fear.  _ No you idiot stop making him feel scared.  _ “Please, just–”

Okay, so Lance was going to nest on an alien beach. Great. Keith felt restless and itchy, not wanting to leave him, but he had to find something Lance could nest with. He ran into Red, hauling himself up the ladder to tear through Lance’s luggage. Blanket– he had a blanket– it smelled like him and Hunk and Allura– shirts and green jacket, shark plushie– it didn’t feel like enough, he should have something better–  _ Red, I need you to help,  _ but Red was silent. Keith dropped back through the hatch and was out into the warm restless evening. Lance was pushing the sand into a more agreeable shape. 

“Here.” Keith handed him his shirts and blanket. It wasn’t enough; he deserved something soft from Pidge and something warm from Shiro and something from Hunk and Coran and Allura too, their whole pack, and for Pom Pom to be there– Lance loved Pom Pom. Pom Pom would make him feel safe. Lance, however, took the clothes as if they were the best thing anyone had ever given him, letting out a satisfied whimper and painstakingly arranging his blanket underneath him, carefully creating boundaries with his shirts and laying out his jacket with his shark resting on top of it. Keith’s lungs were not working properly. 

Lance’s nose scrunched up, and his smell twinged again. 

“I need– something that smells like  _ you,”  _ he mumbled. 

Keith’s heart panged. “Anything, um, in particular–”

“ _ Hurry,  _ Mullet.” 

Keith ran back toward his own lion, barely thinking. He tore through his stuff and grabbed a t-shirt–  _ wasn’t  _ enough– and half-sprinted, half-slid back out of his lion and across the sand to Lance, where he handed him the shirt. He stopped, breathing hard, while Lance carefully arranged the shirt along the edge of his nest, near his shark. 

Keith tore his eyes away from Lance to scan the perimeter of the forest, but it was still, and Black’s presence was looming and possessive in his mind. They would be safe. Lance would be safe, as long as he was still sucking in breath between his occasionally pointy teeth. 

“Are you okay now?” he asked gently. 

Lance didn’t answer, just held out an arm toward him, fingers slightly bent. He didn’t look at him at first, and then tipped his face toward Keith, the wind brushing through his hair and the setting sun painting the shadow of his arm on the pearly sand. 

Keith couldn’t tell what he wanted, a little shaky with nerves, but could smell a deep contentedness. He extended his own hand carefully, tracing it across Lance’s rough palm, entranced by the golden shadows cast by the sunset. Lance curled his fingers closed, his grip warm, and lightly tugs Keith nearer, into the nest. He stumbles over the edge.  _ I’m in his  _ nest. 

“Please?” Lance’s eyebrow quivered. 

Keith wasn’t about to say no to that. He let Lance lead him in and pull him down to his knees on the soft surface of Lance’s blanket. He remembered that he had to breathe, but only managed a rather embarrassing hiccup. His heart was trying to explode through the front of his ribcage. Lance unclipped the chestplate of his armor and pushed it against the edge of his nest. 

“Getting in the way,” he explained. Keith just sat there, dumbstruck, while Lance pulled most of the rest of his armor off and arranged it in his nest. 

He heard something rustling, and something else beeping from his helmet where it lay forgotten in the sand. Hunk was probably worried to death. 

“Lance,” he murmured. Lance perked up at the sound of his name. “We can’t spend the night here.” 

Lance didn’t respond. 

“We can stay here for a little bit, but we have to go back eventually.”

“No.” Lance told him. “No– please, Keith? I can’t–” he looked across his nest. “If you really need me to–” his voice cracked. “I can try. I can try. I can– I’ll try.” He sniffed. “I think. Red can fly himself a little, especially when I’m not– Keith–”

Lance’s hands were shaking. Keith would have punched a tree if he could–  _ great! I’m being a jackass again!–  _ but instead, not knowing what he was doing, he shucked off his chestplate and gauntlets, reaching out a hand to settle on Lance’s shoulder. Lance relaxed. 

“We can stay as long as you need to,” Keith said. “I’m sorry.” It felt better in the nest with his armor off. The smells were so strong he could almost see them. “I’m sorry. I’ll stay as long as you need, okay?” 

“Thank you.” Lance covered Keith’s hand with his own and turned to look at him. His eyes were bright and shining. “I– I’m sorry too. I know I dumped things on you and I feel like an idiot now ‘cause you smelled so weird after that and I thought maybe it was my fault? Maybe not– I don’t know what’s going on with everyone anymore. I’m just– thank you for being here. With me like this. It’s gonna get worse in a few hours, but now– I mean, I don’t wanna worry about that. I’m glad you’re back.”

Lance scooted closer to him so that they were sitting next to each other. Keith smelled the beginnings of full-swing heat scent, not strong enough to turn his head, but there. Lance’s hand stayed covering his. 

“I mean– I’m glad you went? That sounds terrible. I just really like Romelle– not like that, not like– well, Allura– but I’m not even sure about that anymore. I haven’t talked to your mom that much, but she seems cool– yesterday she made this face that you make sometimes, and it was the same face! And Pom Pom.” Lance melted. “I love Pom Pom.”

Keith felt himself smile. He’d walked in on Lance feeding Pom Pom all of the snacks he’d bought on the last planet a few days ago. Initially he’d been angry– Pom Pom helped him fight, and too much food would make him sluggish, but seeing Pom Pom jump on a laughing Lance and lick his hair–

“I was watching you drill with him– the thing where he runs to you and you do that attack that exposes your stomach but works really well, and then he zaps you away, and you come out of it with the slashes and the strike upward after you switch grips?”

“Mmm?” Keith said, feeling very aware of the tiny freckles on the back of Lance’s neck. 

“It’s so cool,” Lance groaned. Keith smelled longing in Lance’s scent. “If Marco could see that he would literally die.”

“I’m sorry,” said Keith. “I know you haven’t seen your family-pack in a year.” 

Before his mission he would have spited Lance for even the luxury of having a family-pack to miss, but now he understand that he had all the more to lose. 

“It wouldn’t be so bad if the Castle felt like a home. There were so many orphaned aliens– I know she’s right, but I wish Allura had just let us take care of one of them! We would have been a good pack for it,” Lance leaned into him, resting his head on Keith’s shoulder. Keith was about fifteen minutes from critical organ failure. “Right?”

“Right,” Keith affirmed. 

“I just want someone in our pack to have kids someday so that it can feel like a real pack. Or another dog. Or something. I know we’re young– we’ve already fought– fought a space war– I just want a family– Keith–” 

Lance whimpered quietly with a hurt Keith’s nose couldn’t describe to his brain properly. He felt the vibrations of his whines through his shoulder, and reached around to cup Lance’s head and draw his face into the hollow of his neck to let Lance scent him. He felt Lance’s breathing steady, and Lance press himself closer to Keith’s chest. He wrapped his arms around Lance, pressing his nose into his hair, and held him. That was what Lance needed, right? He didn’t need to get feelings involved. Lance was his pack, and he needed Keith, and that should be enough. 

It wasn’t. 

“Keith–”

“Hey, it’s okay. You’re gonna be alright. Just– um, just–”

He had a family now– Shiro, Krolia, Romelle, and Pom Pom– and he wasn’t as unsure of himself as before. He wanted Lance, and he wanted to save Shiro and liberate planets and protect his pack. He knew that, but with Lance in his arms and his heat-smell in his nose, knowing and feeling felt galaxies apart. 

“Keith.”

“What?”

“Keith, there’s something–  _ Keith.”  _ His name in Lance’s mouth was like an incantation. Lance was warm and solid against him. “Keith, I’m glad it’s you here.”

_ It’s just the heat talking. He’d never– he’d never want–  _

“Not even Hunk?” Keith’s voice shook. 

“That’s different. You’re– Keith, I–”

_ It’s just the heat talking. _

“Don’t,” Keith burst out. “Not now. Wait for when we’re back.”

“You know?” Lance’s voice was so quiet Keith can barely hear him. 

“Not for sure,” Keith murmured. “Just wait, okay? I’ll be here.” 

“But what if–”

“I’ll be here. I promise.”

“Okay.” Lance looks like he wants to say something more, but it takes him a few tries. “I talked to Shiro about it. I just– I don’t know–”

“You have enough to deal with right now,” said Keith, who also had enough to deal with right now. “We can talk once we’re back up and you’re feeling better, ‘kay?”

Lance responded by leaning his head back. Keith reached for Lance’s discarded helmet and opened up the comms. 

“Voltron, we’re gonna be a while.” 

  
  



End file.
